Six Listen Dylan

This is one of his great albums in the usual reckoning.  I can see why. But dare I say it?  Like a Rolling Stone goes on a bit. Unlike Desolation Row, which the more I listen to it, the more I want it never to end. I enjoy this album top to bottom.  Out-of-tune guitars still present! I will listen to this over and over and always get something new out of it, I'm sure. There is scope for a Dylan fancy dress party.  Einstein dressed as Robin Hood.  Dr Filth, and the nurse (a local loser) in charge of the cyanide hole and the "Have mercy on his soul" cards.  And so on!   I now expect and enjoy the wheezy harmonica throughout, it's all part of the song.  And he can really sing.   Why on earth haven't I given Dylan the time of day before?

  This starts with Subterranean Homesick Blues - possibly the first music video?  It's great, but there are a number of these jokey stream-of-consciousness songs which I can live without.  Maggie's Farm is OK, but is a bit too similar to SHB for my liking.  Outlaw Blues, On The Road Again, Bob Dylan's 115th Dream...they are all OK.  The love songs on side 1 are (shocking!) all...OK too. For me, this album is all about the second side.  Mr Tambourine Man...why did the Byrds miss half the verses out??  Dylan can build a world in a single song and he really does it here.  Hypnotic. Gates of Eden: austere, mysterious, wonderful. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding): I seem to hold my breath during this song.  I knew this song already: think a friend from university put it on a tape compilation thirty years ago.  I am a slow learner!  Staggering. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue: what an ending to an album.  In a number of his "finger-po...

Recorded in one session it seems. So, if anything, even more rough and ready than the previous albums.  Rough and ready is clearly Dylan's MO.  More little flubs, slightly out-of-tune guitars.   I have really enjoyed totally solo Dylan.  The songs are sung with such conviction. And another of the stunning extended songs: Chimes Of Freedom is as relevant now as it was then  "...flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight." Silly shaggy dog stories like I Shall Be Free No. 10 and Motorpsycho Nitemare started off annoying but quickly become fun listens in between the more serious songs. It's confirmed: I'm a fan.

In DeAgostini's opinion, we need to hear Dylan's eponymous (vocab point!) first album third.  Commercially it makes sense I suppose. There are no well-known original songs on here for them to push.  I definitely feel we are going backwards.  There are times when he seems to be trying too hard to get that gutbucket folk/blues voice, almost to the extent of shredding his larynx.  This may explain a lot in the future, of course.  Most of the songs on this album are Trad.  House of the Rising Sun, Man of Constant Sorrow. An awful lot about death for a twenty-year old.  He generally does them well. His acoustic guitar fair rattles along.  Delighted to still hear the odd flub and slightly out -of-tune guitars, though curiously fewer than on the next two albums.  Just two originals here, of which Talkin' New York is the better.  Many artists have a song on an album that proves to be the sign of things to come. Talkin' New York is ve...

Album two is Bob's second. I think you can tell we're taking a bit of a backward step here.  There are covers on here, and a definite sense that some of the tracks are "filler". Blowing in the Wind feels like a song that has existed far longer than 1962.   Masters of War has so much anger in it.  Was his protest period sincere? Sure sounds like it here. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall is definitely the best song on here. Such imagery! So different from the the rest of the album in so many ways: pointing forward to the future perhaps? Bob Dylan's Dream: he was only twenty-two when this album came out! Bit of calculated nostalgia I feel, though it's a great song.  Lots of dreams on this album. Talkin' World War III Blues is all about another, though to be honest his seems to have less to do with am impeding apocalypse than the dread everyone can feel in a dream. I preferred the previous album to be honest. And with the next one we go back to the v...

There's not been a lot of Dylan in my life until now. I know of "the hits". I own Blood On The Tracks, which I think is excellent, and Christmas In The Heart, which is fun. I had a CD copy of "Love and Theft" which got trapped in a car stereo soon after I got it without me really getting to know it. I've read Chronicles Volume I, his first memoir, which I enjoyed. I've seen, and really liked, Don't Look Back, the documentary of his 1965 British tour. Other than that, he's a bit of a closed book to me. He's an important artist. He's won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I like most of what I've heard previously. One of these days, I've thought, I must get to grips with him. Properly. I like doing this kind of thing. I've listened to the whole catalogue of some artists back-to-back: Leonard Cohen, Sparks, Queen, Bowie, the Beatles, Steely Dan, and the Fall. All have been really enjoyable and, in the cases of Sparks and the Fal...